Transnational education, highly relevant in Asian region

Dewi Anggraeni, Contributor, Melbourne, Australia

To call education an industry, then to go ahead marketing it, often brings out strong opinions from those who are decidedly against it.

The concept that education is a human right, and as such should not be a commodity, however, is becoming less attainable every day.

Very few things, in fact, evade becoming a commodity these days. Putting the polemics aside, let us face the fact that in a number of developed countries, education is even an export commodity. We are well and truly in an era of transnational education.

In the 17th IDP (International Development Program) Australian International Education conference held in Melbourne last week, nobody among the approximately 1500 delegates from over 35 countries, including Australia, openly questioned this accepted fact. Instead, panels and speeches discussed and explored ways of making the education industry more competitive and more attractive to prospective clients.

Delegates from exporter countries listened attentively to suggestions from importer countries. On the converse, those from importer countries were in the position of being able to pick and choose which institutions best met their needs.

To accept the premise that education is an industry obviously has some advantages. Suppliers become more attuned to the needs of buyers -- and they are kept alert and motivated to continuously improve the quality of their products.

Only 20 years ago, students from developing countries who came to study in a developed country, be they full-fee payers or scholarships recipients, would just have to overcome their culture shock privately and quietly, adjust to the country's often different teaching and learning methods -- even curriculum contents, or sink.

While this treatment may be good for the soul eventually, it is no longer ideal for today's world, where immediacy is the key word; where what you learn must be able to be used immediately, which usually means that while you are studying, you are actually forging an income-earning tool, which is presumably ready to use when you graduate.

Today, transnational education providers who participate in a business worth billions of dollars have to offer a great deal more than just home-country syllabi. They have to be culturally sensitive, acutely aware of the clients' expectations and standards vis-a-vis their own, take note of compatibility of qualifications (which will facilitate recognition all round) and be up-to-date with various other aspects which never bothered them in the past.

One of the providers of distance education, the University of Southern Queensland for instance, has put together a new course of Comparative Law and Business after taking their clients' needs into consideration. In their MBA program, students have been taught the Australian legal system, including the business regulatory environment, as part of their study. However, as many of the students do not live in Australia and may not necessarily work in Australia, it is considered that they need to learn about other legal systems as well.

The conference has proven that the transnational education industry has become very relevant to us in Asia, as we are an importer region. A research study by IDP Education Australia, Global Student Mobility 2025: Global Competition and Market Share, predicts that in 2025, the Asian region will represent 93 percent of the demand for Australian international higher education, Australia being one of the major English-speaking destinations sought by importer countries in Asia.

Export of transnational education is no longer confined to movement of students from their home country to the supplier country. Program delivery can take place anywhere, University of Southern Queensland being an example. The growth of National-Plus schools in Indonesia, where students are given the national as well as the International Baccalaureate curricula indicates that transnational education is already a reality.

Given the situation we must not be shy in telling the providers what we want. And to be able to do that we urgently need to crawl out of our usual complacency and begin organizing and planning. The danger glaring us in the face is the dreaded cultural marginalization, either developed overseas where the students are studying, or in our own country where the program is being delivered.

The high costs of transnational education may also contribute to the deepening and widening of the gap between the rich and the poor. If those who have enjoyed transnational education are proven more capable to compete in the job market, they will eventually dominate the more lucrative-paying positions, while those who cannot afford transnational education will have to take the lower-paying jobs.

A well-planned scholarship program may help tamper this social problem, seeing that an overhaul of the whole national education system seems less viable in the immediate future.

There is no doubt that education is a crucial part of the country's reform process and transnational education is here to stay. Make the best of it.